


Therapeutic

by cheshirecat101



Series: Tumblr Prompts [5]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Emotional Manipulation, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Manipulation, Manipulative Hannibal, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Psychology, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Scheming, Steo, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:36:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4568190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshirecat101/pseuds/cheshirecat101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theo decides to meet the man living the life he's always wanted; Hannibal Lecter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Therapeutic

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Therapeutic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4689413) by [Schizocheater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schizocheater/pseuds/Schizocheater)



> So some lovely Anon dropped by my inbox with this prompt and I fell in love with it and produced this as a result. It was wonderful to work with these two characters together in the same fic, and I might have to do more with that in the future. Until then, enjoy!

The slide of a hand over a leg, and Theo cleared his throat as he smoothed down the leg of his dark jeans. “Isn’t there usually supposed to be more talking than this?” he asked, something amused in his tone as he tilted his head slightly, looking across the room at his new therapist.

Hannibal folded his hands together, smiling complacently at Theo. A microexpression though, always small and not entirely expressive. Theo had already noted that Hannibal wasn’t the most forthcoming of people, but he couldn’t exactly blame him. In his profession, it made more sense for him to show little reaction to things. Though he also had the feeling that little truly surprised the man. 

“It is entirely up to you whether you want to speak to me or not. It’s my job to listen to you, not to force you to talk,” Hannibal said calmly, and Theo nodded, tapping his fingers against the arm of the chair. The silence wasn’t heavy, or uncomfortable, and Theo found that interesting; that they were already comfortable enough around each other that their silences weren’t strained. Though perhaps that comfort arose from the fact that they were in similar circumstances, after all.

“How did you do it?” Theo asked after a minute, eyes sharply, intently focused on Hannibal, who barely shifted his head, looking at him with an unreadable expression. “How did you convince him?”

Hannibal paused for a moment, though it hardly seemed like a pause, because that would have indicated hesitation, and Theo could already tell he didn’t have much of that at all. More like he was weighing his words, deciding what to tell and what to keep, like a magpie hoarding shiny objects, or a magician keeping trade secrets. A magician was more apt, because Hannibal had certainly worked a special kind of magic over his target, just as Theo was attempting to do with his own, with mixed results. Stiles was…resistant. But he was sure that Will Graham had been as well, and now Hannibal had him exactly where he wanted him. But how?

“Are you asking for yourself, or for a friend?” Oh, and there was a touch of humor, and a smile touched Theo’s lips, halfway to a smirk. He appreciated that Hannibal wasn’t all dry words and lofty advice, instead willing to play a little bit when he knew that he could. And Theo certainly wanted to play this game with him. Learn from the best, if he could. 

He tapped his fingers against the arm of the chair, watching them for a moment as he spoke. “There’s this…guy,” he started, vaguely enough. “Stiles. He’s…well.” He smirked. “He’s Bambi incarnate with a sarcastic wit and a mind like a diamond. If that’s a good description.”

“It’s an excellent description. It tells me how you view him,” Hannibal said, and Theo’s interest was admittedly piqued, though he had to say that he honestly hadn’t been bored yet in the conversation. The only other person who really possessed that ability was Stiles, but that was an entirely different kind of interest, based in an attraction that was turning into an obsession. Okay. Had turned into an obsession already. It was an obsession when he’d memorized the curves of Stiles’s lips, imagined his fingertips running over them before pressing his own lips to them, tasting him for the first time in the most innocent of ways. And then less innocently, letting everything devolve as he took Stiles apart with hands and teeth and tongue, then rebuilt him as he wanted him to be. His.

“How so?” Theo asked, and Hannibal shifted the leg that was crossed over his other one, eyes still steadily on Theo. He was good with eye contact, but so was Theo, and the intensity of each other’s gazes didn’t seem to bother either of them. Good. So far, equals. And Theo preferred it that way. 

“You describe him in soft terms. As a fawn, a usually innocent and gentle creature, something to be taken care of and protected. The other terms that you use don’t go against the image you initially created. Sarcasm does not denote a lack of innocence, nor does a sharp mind. You perceive him as something soft and fragile, yet striving to be self-sufficient.” He paused for a moment, and a very small smile appeared on his lips. “But you don’t want him to be.”

Theo smirked as he thought it over, glad that he’d made this appointment. That he’d decided to visit the man of fame and fortune who was living the dream, though fame was a relative term considering his success was only broadcast in newspapers as putting an innocent man behind bars who was subsequently released and immediately flew back to the man that had put him there in the first place. How the media had loved that, the touching love story about the psychiatrist and his estranged patient, once accused of murder and now released as they looked for the real murderer, who was under their noses the whole time. 

But Theo wasn’t supposed to know about that. It was in the small print, as he read between the lines of the newspaper articles. He knew, he definitely knew what Hannibal was, and that was why he’d been interested in the first place, why he’d purposely sought him out despite the fact that the good doctor was happy in his new life, with his new fiance, and rarely took patients anymore unless they were specifically recommended to him. After all, after everything he’d been through, Will Graham had a fragile psyche and needed to be taken care of. And who was more prepared for that and capable than the man that had broken him in the first place? Ah, to have that relationship with Stiles… 

“You’re just as perceptive as I’d imagined,” Theo said, drawing his nails lightly along the arm of the chair, tempted to turn them into claws and leave his mark. But that would be rude, and if he’d found out anything so far, it was that Hannibal hated rude. And who could blame him? “Stiles is desperately striving to be okay on his own, but we all know it’s not going to happen. He’s just not…equipped right now. Too fragile.” He laughed softly, as if thinking of something funny. “I got him to kill someone.”

And ah, Hannibal actually seemed impressed, a small lift of his eyebrows giving him away, and Theo nearly preened under the attention, the approval of an unofficial mentor. “But, I mean, I’m sure you’ve done the same,” he said nonchalantly, as if it wasn’t one of his proudest accomplishments, despite the fact that it’d been an accidental murder and done in self-defense. The rest would come later.

“Similar, but not the same, I suspect,” Hannibal said, his voice that perpetual even plane, no variation in the terrain, the topography of his tone. It was hard to get a read on him, his heartbeat a steady, even rhythm no matter what Theo said, and Theo was impressed with him, he had to say. Hannibal was definitely playing on his level, and playing a very similar game as well. If not the same. 

Though, perhaps, their goals were different. Theo didn’t know what Hannibal’s ultimate goal was with Will, but had a feeling that it was similar to what he wanted to do with Stiles, though Hannibal was already much more advanced in his endeavors. Something that Theo was reluctantly jealous of, because with both of them under similar circumstances, Hannibal had advanced much farther. True, he had had more time–over a year to Theo’s few months–but still. It was hard not to be envious of the progress that he’d made when Theo felt like every inch was a fight, every tiny bit of forward movement countered by two large steps back with Stiles. Except for Donovan, of course. That had been several steps forward, and Theo was still glowing with that particular victory.

“You’re not going to ask me why I did it?” he asked, smiling smoothly at Hannibal, who brushed a hand down the leg of his pants before folding his hands together again, fingers gently interlaced. 

“I don’t believe I have to,” Hannibal said. “I believe I understand your intentions. But perhaps it would be better if I heard it directly from you.”

Theo shrugged, smirking a bit as he looked down at his hand on the arm of the chair, bored with tapping his fingers against it, tempted to make his claws come out. Wanting to see how much Hannibal knew about his world, about the other kind of monsters that hunted in the night. Human ones could be just as scary, but Theo had long ago forgotten to be afraid. He was the child who wasn’t afraid of the dark, who made friends with the monsters in his closet, and eventually became the one under the bed, taking control over his life in a way that only monsters could. People were so wrong when they assumed that all killers were these sloppy, violent messes. It was all about control.

“He’s in my debt now,” Theo said, sliding his arm back down the arm of the chair, then beginning to walk his fingers up towards the edge, moving slowly. Nope, definitely bored with that, and he pushed off the arms, standing and moving towards the desk that Hannibal had, a fireplace behind it where a rather cheerful blaze was going. He stretched lazily, aware of Hannibal’s eyes on him, and then wandered over to the desk, coming around the edge of it to look at things from Hannibal’s point of view, where he usually sat at the desk.

Drawings, pencils, ooh, a scalpel…Theo picked up the scalpel as he continued, “I killed someone else in defense of us both. Now we’re at a stalemate, and meanwhile, I got him to taste blood for the first time.” He smiled to himself, balancing the scalpel on the end of its handle, touching the pad of his index finger to the sharp tip of it. “I think he liked it. Actually,” he said, watching dispassionately as a drop of blood welled over the tip of the scalpel, making a nearly perfect bead and pausing for a mere millisecond before slowly beginning to slide down the blade, “I know he did. Because I know Stiles.” He hummed a moment before looking at Hannibal again as another bead of blood followed the first. “I knew him in fourth grade, actually.”

“Were you obsessed with him then as well?”

Hannibal’s voice was calm, dispassionate as he stood and buttoned his suit jacket, seeming unruffled by finding someone making themselves bleed on his desk. Theo smiled at the question, eyes moving to Hannibal’s before they found themselves back on the blade. A third drop, quickly followed by a fourth. He was bleeding faster now, and that was enough. Abruptly, he removed his finger from the scalpel, letting it fall to the desk, and licked the blood off of his fingertip, which had finished healing even before his tongue swiped over it. The drops had still managed to reach the desk, though, a small pool of blood right next to the scalpel that Hannibal would have to clean up later. A way to leave a mark on the place, even if it was only temporary, for Theo. 

“I wouldn’t say obsessed. Certainly not when I was nine,” he said, finger pausing above the drops of blood pooled on the desk, then decided against it, pulling his hand back again and moving off towards the fireplace, as if bored with what he’d done. He could hear Hannibal beginning to clean up as he stopped in front of the fire, the sound of a pocket square being swiftly pulled from a pocket and then the rustle of fabric against a wooden desk, the slight clank of metal as the scalpel was moved. He’d wondered how long it would take for Hannibal to need to clean it, and that answered his question. Interesting.

“Okay. Maybe a little obsessed when I was nine,” he conceded, hands clasped behind his back as he looked at the fire, thinking for a moment back to that time before time, when they all knew each other and Stiles had been a jealous little thing, thinking Theo was trying to take away his best friend, when Scott was not the one he wanted. But Stiles had always assumed that Theo was simply trying to win them both over just to drive a wedge between them, which was admittedly sort of what he wanted to do, and definitely what he wanted to do now, in the present. But back then? Every offer of wildflowers that Stiles had interpreted as meant for Scott (because even then he didn’t see his own value) had really been meant for Stiles, and Theo had never been able to get him to see that. See that he was sincere. And then, too late, he’d already been gone.

“But to be fair, he was adorable, even then. But a little different…” He hummed a moment, then turned to look at Hannibal again, who was busy cleaning off the scalpel, though Theo had no doubt in his mind that he was listening attentively to every word. “That was before his mother died. So. When I came back he was a little different than the boy I left.”

“But better, in your opinion,” Hannibal said, and Theo waited until his gaze was on him once again, Hannibal still diligently cleaning off the scalpel with his pocket square, the blood already off the desk. That silk was going to be ruined. Perfect. “Better, because he’s more malleable now. Steeped in a self-loathing that lends itself to craving touch. Tell me, how much affection is he getting now?”

Theo sighed, unclasping his hands from behind his back. “Enough,” he answered, tone displeased. “He has a girlfriend, and several friends. But I don’t think it’s enough, even then.”

“It won’t be. Not if you make sure that it isn’t.”

“Is that how you did it, then?” Theo asked, smirking a bit at Hannibal as he returned to the original question. The question of how exactly he’d managed to tame Will Graham.

Hannibal smiled, to himself, it seemed, for a moment, looking down at the scalpel he was polishing, and then said, “I simply made Will realize that he needed me. That his life was better lived with me, than fighting against me. And–” he placed the scalpel gently back in its place and began to fold his pocket square again “–that we are better together than we are apart, that both of our health is improved by being around each other rather than apart. It wasn’t easy, I assure you, but Will did realize the truth eventually.”

He placed the pocket square back in his pocket, carefully folded so no blood was visible, and looked at Theo, smiling gently as he clasped his hands together. “What you have to determine, Theo, is the truth. Is it truly better for Stiles to be with you, or is that simply your desire? I will not discourage you from acting on your desires, but I will tell you that if he truly is better off with you, then it will happen. And it will be much easier than it feels right now.”

Theo nodded, falling back into his mind as he turned over Hannibal’s words, letting them tumble through his head like a stone through a tumbler, considering every facet until it spat out one clear, crystallized thought.

“Yes,” he said, looking at Hannibal again. “He’s better off with me.”

And a smile touched Hannibal’s lips at that, not a micro expression, but a genuine one, and he nodded. “Good. Then we’ll get him for you.”


End file.
